


Scimitar

by Tyranno



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, keith is adopted by all of the blade of marmora :), this story is old so im just posting it to see who wants it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 19:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15669882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyranno/pseuds/Tyranno
Summary: Chased by Zarkon's forces and unable to return to Earth, Krolia has one last hope for the safety of the baby she carries. She leaves the child at the Blade base, hoping she can come back soon to deliver him back to his father.She doesn't return.





	Scimitar

**Author's Note:**

> just as a warning: **I'm probably not gonna post much more of this**. I don't like voltron much anymore  & im only posting this to see who wants it. I've written abt 3 chapters.

1.

The door opened with a hush, and a figure stumbled into the galley. The broad room was dark, green and blue light spilling from geometric lights set into the stone, and the edges of the stranger’s costume glowed faintly. The Blade of Marmora turned towards them, drawing swords and levelling guns at the stranger. 

“Who are you?” Kolivan snapped, pacing forwards, “How did you get in here?!” 

Whoever it was stumbled, leaning heavily on the wall. The stranger was dressed in all black, an old-fashioned, tattered flight suit, but they tugged hard at the corner of their helmet, detaching it and letting it drop. Thick purple fur was slick to the sides of her jaw, her yellow eyes darting across the gathered fighters. A bundle of cloth was huddled close to her chest. 

“Krolia,” Kolivan breathed, stopping in his tracks, “What happened? The last communication we had with you was...” he trailed off as his gaze fixed on the bundle against the spy’s chest. It was moving. 

Krolia wiped a clawed hand across her forehead. She hadn’t quite got her breath back, still breathing heavily as she partially unwrapped the bundle. A little arm poked out of the bundle, skin as hairless and pink as the inside of a seashell. 

“He’s mine,” Krolia said, more sigh than words. Her hands were shaking slightly from over-exertion. 

Kolivan looked blank. His eyebrows drew together and then his face slackened, like he was feeling something he didn’t know how to interpret. 

“You have to keep him for me,” Krolia said, pushing off the wall. Her knees shook slightly, but she stood strong, holding the bundle out to Kolivan. “Hold him. I’ll come back for him, I just…” 

“Krolia...” Kolivan almost recoiled, “This is no place for a child.” 

“Hold him Kolivan!” Krolia snapped. Her voice was like a knife. 

Kolivan took the bundle. The boy squirmed against him, a few whimpers escaping the blankets. “Where did he come from, Krolia?” Kolivan asked, “Can’t you leave him with his father?” 

“No time,” Krolia said, snagging her helmet from the floor. 

The boy began to wail. Kolivan looked down at him in surprise. 

“Shh, shh,” Krolia purred, returning to her son’s side. She ran a thumb over his small cheek, “Don’t worry, Keith baby. Mummy’s going to be fine. You’re gonna be just fine with uncle Kolivan.” 

Kolivan shifted the boy in his arms, “How long will you be? We can’t be your babysitters.” 

Krolia ignored him, fumbling with her belt for a moment before pulling out her knife. It glowed against her, pulsing like it was alive. The baby continued to wail. She held the knife out to Kolivan. 

Kolivan stared at it. 

“I can’t keep it around in case...,” Krolia bit her lip, “I need you to keep it for me.” 

Kolivan took it, tucking it next to his own. A deep sense of unease clawed at his stomach. “Krolia...” 

“I’ll be back!” Krolia swore, voice suddenly loud and sharp. She bent down and pressed a kiss to her son’s forehead. His cries wavered for a moment, big eyes bright and wet. “I’ll come back for you baby, I swear it. I’m coming back.” 

Krolia walked back a few paces and fixed the helmet over her head. Despite her exhaustion, she stood tall and firm. For a moment, she just stood and stared at the pair of them, the Galra leader and the baby in his arms, fists clenching and unclenching. 

Then she turned and sprinted off, disappearing through the double doors. 

She didn’t come back. 

 

*

 

It had been an incredibly long time since Kolivan had had any close contact with a child, let alone a baby, and it came as a surprise how unlike an adult they were. Keith was tiny, dribbly, and totally and utterly at the world’s mercy. 

Kolivan attempted to form a truce with the baby. As long as Keith was fed, changed, entertained, burped, cuddled and put to bed regularly, Keith was to avoid crying unless totally necessary. It was not an agreement Keith followed often. 

It wasn’t uncommon that something would set Keith off, and despite his best efforts, Kolivan couldn’t find or fix the problem. He suspected the boy had simply started crying and gotten caught up in his own noise. 

Despite Keith’s all attempts to be infuriating, Kolivan was hopelessly attached to him. The sheer vulnerability of the child, the innocence and bubbly laughs that occasionally escaped him; all of it strangely endearing. Kolivan quickly set it up that only him and the highest command were allowed to look after him, and even they needed serious debriefings on how to hold him, when to feed him, how to entertain him safely. They banked on the fact that, despite Keith’s appearance, his biology was close enough to a Galra’s to raise him as they had been raised. 

Luckily, none of the command thought differently of Kolivan when he laid out plans and consolidated information with his command while Keith slept in a little pouch that rested on Kolivan’s chest. Enough secrets fell on the little baby’s ears to make Haggar swoon from jealousy. 

 

*

 

Two months after Keith came to them, he started to crawl. He had been wriggling more and more in Kolivan’s baby pouch but it was still surprising when the boy tried to escape while Kolivan was changing him. 

Despite his affection for the boy, Kolivan’s heart sunk a little. When Keith could only roll that was bad enough—a Keith on the move would be even worse. 

Keith had obviously inherited his mother’s raw vitality and once he started crawling he didn’t stop. Occasionally, the boy would tire himself out so much he fell asleep where he knelt, in heaps of his shall. 

Zorga, who had an invaluable talent for seeing problems before they occurred, fitted barriers to the winding stairs to avoid any tumbles and even found a small enough helmet to fit over Keith’s head and turned the flashing headlights on so people could see him coming, and hopefully not step on him. Keith did not like his helmet at all, but bore it with admirable stoicness. 

Zorga was the only footsoldier Kolivan allowed to look after Keith because, as she confessed to him while watching Keith systematically rip up his blankets, she had had children of her own back on her home planet. Kolivan noted the past tense, but did not pry. 

Zorga was only one quarter Galra, and had six long, rubbery tendrils that ran like hair from the crown of her head. They glowed faintly in daylight, but in the dark they were vibrant and beautiful. Keith took a great liking to Zorga because she let him tug on her tendrils, a privilege which he abused constantly, using her to heave himself to his feet and stumble around. 

She even let the boy chew on them when he started teething, although from her face it was obviously uncomfortable. 

Keith teething was something that would scar Kolivan for the rest of his life. 

It was hell. 

The flashing helmet had to go—Keith had no patience for that or anything else. His crying, which had become manageable, suddenly spiked to an even higher frequency than when he had just come to the Blade’s headquarters and was missing his mother. 

Kolivan kept the boy supplied with hard, safe things to chew on—wooden spoons, long plastic tubes, strips of leather—and following Zorga’s advice, he rubbed the boy’s gums with moist gauze and he kept cool wash cloths for the boy to suck on. He even considered pain remedies but eventually decided against the risk. Nothing seemed to work. 

When Keith had tired himself out from crying, his little face was so scrunched up and pink it broke Kolivan’s heart. He took to carrying him around in a pouch of blankets again like he had when Keith was new, so he could comfort him as best he could when the boy’s jaws started to hurt again. It didn’t even bother him when Keith took Kolivan’s long white braid and chewed it. Well… it didn’t bother him enough to put the boy down. 

 

*

 

Keith’s teeth came in blunt and firmly human. He gained most of them in quick succession, much to Kolivan’s relief. The few that remained hidden in his gums seemed to be content with staying there for now. 

Teeth dealt with, Keith seemed eager to pick up where he left off, toddling around in a shuffling crawl. Within a few months, he started to walk a few paces before falling back into a crawl. Speed seemed to be Keith’s top priority, so much so that he forgot to look where he was going. Kolivan spent a lot of time in those months rubbing ointment into Keith’s bruised forehead. 

Keith’s favourite word was “No!” and he used it liberally, occasionally followed by a giggle. “Ya,” came less often, but usually with the same fierce enthusiasm. 

By the time the rest of Keith’s teeth came in, he was starting to walk with more confidence. His speech was garbled but his expression held such clarity and confidence, it usually left Kolivan scrambling to try and follow his nonsense sentences. 

Antok won Keith’s devotion by bringing back colouring books and crayons from some distant corner of the galaxy. Most visiting spies and fighters would cajole and reward him for autographs and pictures. Keith wore the purple crayons down to stubs drawing portraits of the soldiers. 

Ulaz bartered for one of the prized portraits and, at the very steep price of six cookies and a picture book, gained a greyish, blobby rendition of himself. In it, his eyes were orange, not yellow, with an inexplicable stripe of green down the centre of his head instead of his tuft of hair. Ulaz got out of the way of Keith to avoid the fallout of the six cookies, and tucked the picture behind his breastplate. 

 

*

 

When Keith was seven, Kolivan found he had manipulated some of the footsoldiers into teaching him some moves. There had been bruises and cuts appearing on the boy’s arms, and for fear that some of the soldiers were treating them roughly, he followed him down into the loading docks where met with some sheepish-looking foot soldiers and found it was quite the opposite. 

Whoever Keith’s father was, the boy seemed to have inherited his sharp tongue. He forced the soldiers to teach him, and hapless, they obeyed. 

Kolivan realised there would be no deterring him, so he assigned Keith to Ulaz, who taught the boy slowly and carefully, one move at a time. 

 

*

 

For his eighth birthday, Zorga brought Keith some Earth food—a few stale sandwiches and a bottle of flat cola. They weren’t sure when his exact birthday, but they knew it was an important Earth tradition, so they chose the day of his arrival. 

It was stale and unpleasant, but Zorga had worked so hard Keith ate it all anyway. 

 

*

 

When he was eleven, Keith was caught scrapping with some of the younger footsoldiers. He was caught again a few weeks later, and again. Kolivan no longer had to warn new members not to tussle with the boy—they felt the atmosphere around him and steered clear. Save for the few adults who already knew him, Keith made no more friends. Kolivan tried to order him to play nice, but Keith only fumed silently, hands balled into fists. 

The fifth time Keith was caught, Kolivan only sighed and waved the report off. Keith was still polite to him, out of respect, but he could see the boy was becoming unruly. He didn’t know anyone his own age, and despite being surrounded by people, was growing lonely and angry. The Blade’s headquarters, which had seemed to large to a six-year old, had grown stifling. Like a Meacholh crab back on Galra, Keith had grown to press against the confines of his shell, and soon he would have to move on and find a new one. 

 

*

 

When Keith was fourteen, Kolivan called his most trusted generals into the command centre, and that somehow included Keith. Ulaz had been training him in an empty loading bay when he got the call, and had taken Keith with him. Both of them put their masks on as they entered the command room. 

There was a tension in the air, but it was not really fear. It was more excitement. Exhilaration. Keith perked up immediately. 

“What’s going on?” Ulaz asked. 

“Trusted members,” Kolivan said, “I bring promising news. The squad we sent out fourteen Quintents ago carried out a successful raid on a Galra battleship. There were some losses, however.” 

“Who?” Altor asked.

Kolivan spared a glance at Keith, “Zorga and six others.” 

Keith stared at him. Zorga. 

Thrace nodded, slowly, “Did they find anything worthwhile?” 

The discussion continued, but Keith peeled off from the group, slipping away. He knew the corridors of the headquarters like the back of his hand and quickly found what he was looking for. A small hatch a few corridors away from the command centre and with a few jumps, he caught the door and crawled inside. 

In the dark and the dust, boxed in on all sides, Keith felt heat crawl to his face, scratchy and uncomfortable. He closed the door behind him. A pressure rose against the back of his eyes. He had seen less and less of Zorga over the last few years as her missions took her further and further from the base. Generally the more talented a spy was, the less time they spent at the headquarters. 

Still, she had made her visits count, bringing him presents and gifts from all corners of the universe, whenever she was able. 

And now she was dead. 

She had died—maybe a week ago. Far across the galaxy she had been fighting for her life and losing, and Keith had been stuck at the base, wasting his time with stupid games and books. 

He curled in on himself and began to cry. 

 

*

 

Hours later, Keith unfolded himself from the hatch and dropped back into the corridor. His eyes still felt raw, but mostly he felt empty. He heard a burst of voices and perked up.

Two soldiers passed, deep in conversation. They sounded more excited than any talk he’d heard in weeks. 

“What’s up?” He asked. 

One of the soldiers glanced over, “It’s Voltron.” 

“Voltron?” Keith frowned, “That kid’s tale?” 

“It’s real!” The other soldier said, slapping him on the back, “One of the lions is in the holding bay! You can go look at it if you want, that’s where we’re going. Everyone’s allowed to try out to be it’s paladin.” 

Keith shrugged, “Maybe later.” 

 

*

 

Later came. 

Keith crept through the corridors, careful to avoid the places where the doors opened automatically and loudly. There wasn’t really a day or night on the base, but most members slept at the same time and kept regular hours. 

He wanted to see what Zorga’s life had bought for them. What all of the seven lives they’d lost had. 

The hangar was dark and cold. A bright blue light glowed from a strange grid in the corner. 

“You,” Someone hissed. 

Keith spun on his heel. 

Naull stepped out of the shadows, long hair braided in the thin chains. He was at least half Galra, like Keith, but, like Keith, he didn’t look it. His skin was rippled and dark green, eyes white and thin. His shoulders were broad and his spine was peppered with thorn-shaped plates. 

“You’re here to try your luck?” Naull folded his arms, “Why even bother, honestly?” 

“Do I know you?” Keith asked, taking a step back. There was something in the boy’s stance, in his glare that made him wary. 

“You don’t have to,” Naull snapped, “I got the measure of you from one look. You’re the commander’s favourite—that’s the only reason anyone puts up with a coward like you.” 

Keith rounded on him, shoulder rising, “I’m not a coward!” 

“I joined the resistance when I was your age,” Naull snarled, hands curling into fists, “You’re free to sit around here while everyone else risks everything!” 

Keith swung at him and Naull evaded easily. 

“You’re the type to yammer about courage but never leaves the base!”

“I asked!” Keith yelled, “I want to go fight!” 

Naull’s fist slammed into the side of Keith’s head, nearly knocking off his feet. Stars burst in front of Keith’s eyes. He spluttered and gasped. 

“Oh you asked?!” Naull spat, “Did you ask that quiznak Zarkon too?!” 

Keith lashed out, landing a hit on Naull’s shoulder. Naull took a few paces away rubbing his shoulder. 

“You don’t even a proper blade,” Naull huffed, “You’re nothing but a freeloader, living off your dead mother’s coattails.” 

Keith’s teeth ground together, “She’s not dead.” 

“You’re right,” Naull said, dropping into a fighting stance, “She’s probably fine. She’s just got more sense than to come back to collect a useless son.” 

Keith yelled. 

The pair collided with a crash, and the fight became more like a wrestling match. Keith struggled, but Naull was stronger, yanking Keith’s arm behind his back. With a difficult twist, Keith slipped out of Naull’s grasp, but the larger boy didn’t let up, sweeping the feet from under him.

Keith’s head hit the hangar floor and his vision went black for a moment. Naull pounced, pinning him to the dirty stone. He pulled an arm back, white eyes narrowing to slits. 

The first punch hit him like a blow from a bat, rattling his skull. Keith yelled and wriggled, but he couldn’t escape. He lifted his head at the second punch, which only made the impact harder. He grimaced, a wound opening on his forehead. 

He started to hear things that weren’t there—someone shouting, a groaning of metal. A roar. 

The third punch nearly blinded him. He screwed his eyes shut and grimaced, hard. The next one would knock him out. 

Naull leaped up suddenly and pelted away, nearly knocking boxes over in the process. Keith breathed a sigh of relief, and opened an eye. 

A shadow fell over him. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the light. 

He looked up into the face of a gigantic red lion.


End file.
